by Dudley Pope
He put the speaking-trumpet to his mouth: “Man the weather braces—tend the lee ones … Quartermaster, larboard four points … Ease away and haul in; run away with it, lads … right, tally aft those sheets …”
Why hadn’t he shaken the reefs out of the topsails? He had thought of it earlier and decided against it for fear the Peacock would see men out on his yards, but he’d been wrong: he needed every square inch of canvas now to catch up.
As the Triton’s bow swung round towards the Topaz, the great yards overhead slowly moved, keeping the sails filled. Men, one behind the other on the ropes like one side of a tug of war, hauled and strained.
Within a minute the Triton was steering for the head of the convoy. He could just see the Peacock silhouetted, larger and closer. The convoy was moving slowly to starboard; he now needed to steer a converging course, slightly crabwise to starboard.
Hurriedly he shouted once again the orders to trim the sails. A few words to the quartermaster and the Triton’s bowsprit swung slightly to starboard, heading towards where the Peacock should be in a few minutes. Should be—damn and blast, he’d never make it under just topsails, but it’d throw the ship—and himself, if he was honest—into confusion if he set the forecourse now, and then tried to get it clewed up as he turned alongside the Peacock.
Last-minute rush and stupidity was what lost battles, and he was proving it….
With the wind almost dead astern, the Triton was at last picking up a bit of speed: the seas, too, were now dead astern, instead of being on the quarter, and that small fact added its quota to her speed through the water.
“Puzzle to know whether to raise the alarm or not,” Southwick said, and Ramage realized that the old Master was thinking aloud, not asking a question. He was holding something out to Ramage—a cutlass.
As Ramage took it he noticed that Southwick had buckled on his own huge sword, a real meat-cleaver.
“You stay on board, Mr Southwick,” he said. “No, dashing over with a boarding party. That will be Appleby’s job. Hear that, Appleby?”
“Aye aye, sir,” the master’s mate answered cheerfully, waving his cutlass. “My party’s all ready.”
Since Ramage had guessed what the Peacock probably intended he had done all he could to counter it. But there was still just a chance that he was completely wrong and the Peacock entirely innocent.
There would be nearly a minute, as the Triton turned on to a parallel course, in which he had to decide whether he shouted a cheerful warning to the Peacock, or fired a broadside into her, killing a dozen possibly innocent men.
He didn’t want to be babbling sail and helm orders while he made up his mind so he turned to the Master: “Mr Southwick, take the conn, if you please. Steer to converge on the Peacock. We’ll luff at the last moment if she’s not up to mischief, otherwise put me alongside her.”
The Master said: “It’ll be a pleasure, sir; leave it to me.”
Leave the ship to me, he might have been saying, but don’t make any mistakes with the thinking part. Ramage felt deep affection for the man, and wondered if anyone else could give so much and such good advice without speaking a word.
Ramage stuck the cutlass in the deck beside him and watched the Peacock through his night glass, cursing the inverted image. There were no more than three or four men on deck but suddenly the main and forecourse changed shape, like curtains being lifted to the yards.
“They’re clewing up their courses!”
Southwick had spotted it too and Ramage put down the glass. The Peacock was less than a hundred yards from the Topaz and yet none of Yorke’s people had shouted or fired a warning musket. They might have spotted her, but since they knew nothing of last night’s episode they might not be suspicious. He pictured the officer-of-the-watch idly watching….
Should he fire a shot to warn the Topaz or hold on and hope to surprise the Peacock by slapping the Triton alongside her?
He was just going to order the forwardmost gun to fire a warning when he saw sails moving beyond the third ship in the column. It was the Peacock’s next ahead and he’d forgotten all about her. He’d clean forgotten half the potential enemy force, but it didn’t make much difference as it happened. There was nothing he could do about it: the Peacock would occupy all his energy.
Now Southwick was bellowing the order that would bring the Triton alongside the runner and was looking to Ramage for orders. Were they to open fire or not? Was he to crash the brig alongside, risk carrying away masts, and prepare to send a boarding party over as soon as the carronades had swept the decks a few times?
Ramage could not decide. All he could see were three or four men on the Peacock’s quarterdeck, and a few more men clewing up the courses. There was nothing really wrong with that and the Peacock still had fifty yards or so to go before she was abreast the Topaz. Then the distance between the masts changed slightly: the Peacock was turning to larboard: turning just enough so that a further turn of a few degrees to starboard could lay her alongside the Topaz!
But still nothing had happened that could tell him for certain that the Peacock was an enemy ship bent on attacking the Topaz rather than a friendly ship out of position on a dark night …
“Sir!” Southwick had been wailing the word for several seconds. He had to know now whether to luff up or lay her alongside: no further delay was possible.
“Put her alongside,” Ramage heard himself shouting and, using the speaking-trumpet added: “Gun captains! Hold your fire until I give the order—then aim for the quarterdeck!”
The Triton’s jib-boom had been pointing just ahead of the Peacock, but in response to Southwick’s orders it swung away to starboard and the merchantman moved round to broad on the Triton’s bow. The combined movement of the two ships made it seem as though the Peacock was coming sideways towards the Triton; a fast-moving nightmare. Upside down in the night glass, black maggots swarmed suddenly over the Peacock’s decks, and without consciously registering what he had seen, Ramage bellowed:
“Gun captains—fire as you bear!”
As the first carronade fired the flash lit up the Peacock like a flicker of summer lightning. With awful clarity he saw that the Peacock’s decks were now covered with armed men. Scores and scores of them had been hiding below the bulwarks. As other carronades fired he saw more men pouring up from below, their cutlasses glinting in the flashes of gunfire. The Peacock was not yet alongside the Topaz, which he could just make out twenty or thirty yards beyond. Almost unbelievably the Triton had arrived just in time.
Just in time, if he could stop the Peacock being manoeuvred those last few yards to the Topaz. Nothing could save the Topaz or even the Triton from that swarm of men once the Peacock was alongside.
“Aim at the wheel!” he screamed at the men at the carronades. “Gun captains—the wheel!” In the flashes of gunfire he saw Jackson standing on the bulwark carefully aiming a musketoon, methodically aiming and firing it and passing it down to be reloaded, while another loaded one was handed up to him. Standing beside him on the bulwark, Ramage saw that the men in the Peacock were in confusion, and guessed her Captain had been so sure he’d get alongside the Topaz before the Triton could reach him that he had all his gunners at the larboard side guns, ready to sweep the merchantman.
Not one of the Peacock’s starboard side guns had fired back at the Triton yet and Ramage decided to take advantage of the fact. Leaping down from the bulwarks he ran over to Southwick and shouted, above the thunder of the carronades: “Stay twenty yards off—I want to give them a good pounding with the guns, otherwise we don’t stand a chance against all those men: they’ll swarm over us!”
Southwick bellowed into his speaking-trumpet, choosing moments between the guns firing, and as Ramage rejoined Jackson at the bulwark the brig settled down to a course parallel with the Peacock but twenty yards to windward. Ramage watched warily for the first sign that the Peacock was going to try to luff up and get alongside the Triton.
The gunners
were settling into a steady rhythm and the flash as each carronade fired momentarily lit up the Peacock, like a furnace door being opened quickly and shut. The flashes showed the Peacock’s deck was now clearing: there were small dark piles of bodies where grapeshot had torn into her boarders, but the rest had dispersed to find some shelter. Ramage knew many must be crouching in the lee of the bulwark, waiting for the Tritons to board.
Suddenly Ramage realized the Topaz was no longer ahead of the Peacock. He glanced round in alarm and it took him several moments to realize that the Peacock must have come round to starboard a little—with the Triton conforming—and, sailing faster than the convoy, had left the rest of the ships astern. The nearest part of the convoy was now a good half a mile away on the starboard quarter. The Topaz was safe now, whatever happened to the Triton.
There was a flash from the Peacock’s side: one of her guns had been loaded and fired. Ramage heard neither the thud of a hit nor the noise of a shot passing close. As soon as all the Peacock’s starboard side guns were firing, it would be time to try the other tack.
He banged Jackson on the shoulder. “Tell Mr Southwick to make sure all the starboard side guns are loaded with grape, and to pass the word when that’s done and he’s ready to wear ship!”
Another flash from the Peacock’s side, and then another. Three guns manned and firing, and three more to go. With luck one or two had been damaged …
Jackson, pulling at his shoulder, reported that the starboard guns were already loaded and the Master ready to wear.
Another flash from the Peacock’s side warned him four guns were now manned. He knew it was time to attack from the other side …
He jumped down on to the deck and strode over to Southwick, but even before he could give any orders Jackson was beside him gesticulating. Ramage turned to see another ship coming up on the Peacock’s larboard quarter.
“The Greyhound frigate, sir!” Jackson yelled.
So there was no need to wear round to attack the Peacock on the other side.
As he watched the frigate, Ramage heard yelling and shouting coming from the Peacock; excited cries that carried over the noise of carronades and musketoons.
The shouting was in French, and he thought he could hear “Board her!” being constantly repeated. He went back to the bulwark and tried to concentrate his thoughts while, one after another, the carronades gave enormous, heavy coughs as they fired and then crashed back in recoil in a series of rumbles which shook the whole deck.
The stretch of water between the two ships, the waves slopping darkly but constantly reflecting the flash of gunfire, was too narrow. Too late, Ramage realized what was happening. The Peacock, sheering away from the approaching Greyhound, was running aboard the Triton.
“Stand by to repel boarders!” Ramage shouted at the top of his voice and at the same instant realized he was unarmed: the cutlass given him by Southwick was still stuck in the deck somewhere. He could hear the Master repeating his cry, but it was unnecessary: there was not a man in the Triton who did not realize there was no chance of the Triton avoiding the Peacock crashing alongside.
Ramage glanced back at the Greyhound: she was coming up fast—she had perhaps two ship’s lengths to go before she was alongside the Peacock. A matter of minutes, almost moments. And in that time the bunch of cut-throats in the Peacock—obviously French privateersmen, although he hadn’t the slightest idea how they got there—would have slaughtered every man in the Triton.
There was no point in standing up here on the bulwark like a pheasant on a gate, Ramage told himself; he could see all that was necessary from the deck. He jumped down and ran over to the rack of boarding pikes fitted round the mainmast. As he snatched one, the brig gave a sudden lurch: the Peacock had crashed alongside.
Boarding nets, Ramage thought with irritation: I didn’t order them to be rigged up. But there was no sudden swarm of screaming Frenchmen over the top of the Triton’s bulwarks; instead the men at the guns continued sponging, loading, ramming, running out and firing into the French ship.
As he realized the enemy was not still alongside he saw Southwick was standing beside him, shouting something … “Managed to turn to starboard enough to dodge … Should I repeat it if the Peacock—”
“Yes, right now!” Ramage yelled as he felt the Peacock crash alongside once more and saw men holding on to her rigging, poised to jump and waving cutlasses that glinted in the flash of the guns.
Every available Triton was waiting at the bulwarks. Many had muskets, with cutlasses slung over their shoulders; others held boarding pikes, the seven-feet-long ash staves with long, narrow spear tips.
A flash and a noise like tearing canvas warned Ramage that a roundshot from one of the Peacock’s guns had missed him by a matter of inches. Then he saw, in the flash from one of the Triton’s guns, eight or ten Frenchmen toppling from the Peacock’s main shrouds. It took him a few seconds to realize that the Triton’s Marines were clearing the Peacock’s rigging by firing volleys from the musketoons. It said something for the coolness of the Marine corporal …
Suddenly there were twenty Frenchmen screaming and scrambling at the bulwarks where Ramage had been standing: they had all leapt at the same instant and, Ramage guessed, misjudged the distance slightly in the darkness. Instinctively Ramage lunged with the boarding pike, felt the wood jar his arms as the point came hard up against bone, and wrenched it back ready to stab again into the mass of men.
Jackson and Stafford were beside him, screaming like madmen and slashing with their cutlasses; a stream of blasphemy in Italian, the Genoese accent unmistakable, showed that Rossi was close by.
More Frenchmen were streaming on board and overrunning the carronades, and out of the corner of his eye Ramage saw Jackson slip. A Frenchman paused above him, bracing to slash down with his sword. Without thinking Ramage hurled the boarding pike like a spear and caught the Frenchman in the side of the chest. As he fell, Jackson got to his feet again and waved cheerfully before leaping at the nearest group of boarders.
Ramage caught sight of a cutlass lying on the deck, snatched it up and turned back towards the Peacock. There was a bellow of wrath a few feet away and he caught sight of Southwick, hat-less and his white hair sticking up like a mop, slashing away with his enormous sword and driving three Frenchmen before him.
But there was something odd about the Frenchmen now: no more were boarding and the shouting was dying down. In fact, he suddenly noticed, many of them were scrambling back on board the Peacock.
Then the dull rumble of a heavy broadside warned him that the Greyhound frigate had just run aboard the Peacock on the larboard side.
All over the brig there were small groups of Tritons backing and slashing away with pikes and cutlasses at groups of similarly armed Frenchmen, but there was something else happening. Ramage knew he would have to pause a moment before he could fathom what it was. The screaming Frenchman with whom he was fighting suddenly collapsed, stabbed by Rossi’s pike, and Ramage leapt sideways and made for the mainmast. Standing with his back against it, cutlass in his right hand, he looked across at the Peacock and realized that all three ships, locked together, were slowly swinging. The “something else” that puzzled him was the change in movement as they swung broadside on to the sea in the lee of the Greyhound.
He stared at the Peacock’s masts, and then at her shrouds. There was no doubt about it—she was drawing away from the Triton. A moment later a group of Frenchmen noticed it and scrambled on to the bulwark to try to get back on board. But the gap was too wide: the Greyhound must have rigged grapnels from the ends of her yards and these were holding the Peacock alongside. The Triton with nothing holding her against the Peacock, was drifting off to leeward.
There would be no more boarders now, and he must quickly rally the Tritons.
He ran to the wheel shouting, “Tritons! To me, Tritons!”
Other seamen took up the cry as they joined Ramage until it was a regular chant by thirty or more men,
among them Southwick. Now he could clear the ship of the enemy, but as he was about to shout the orders he heard a terrible wail and saw that most of the remaining boarders had rushed to the larboard side and were looking at the Peacock, now ten yards away. Some of their shipmates appeared at her bulwarks and began throwing lines over the side. With that one Frenchman after another jumped into the sea and began splashing his way back to the Peacock.
Within a minute Ramage and Southwick were staring at each other in amazement: there was not one able-bodied Frenchman left on board the Triton.
“I want a dozen men to deal with the wounded,” Ramage told Southwick, “and all the larboard side guns are to be reloaded. Let’s get the ship under way again and give the Greyhound a hand.”
Before all the wounded had been carried below and the sails trimmed, the firing from the Peacock’s guns had become sporadic. The thunder of the Greyhound’s broadsides continued for another four or five minutes before stopping abruptly, signalling that the Peacock had been captured.
An hour passed before Ramage, tacking the Triton up to windward again, found the convoy and got back into position. By then Bowen had reported the casualties to him. Six Tritons had been killed—all by the Peacock’s six-pounders—and, by what Ramage privately thought could only be a miracle, only five had been wounded. The French boarding party had left eight dead behind, but had apparently taken their wounded with them. Privateersmen, never giving or asking quarter, took care of their wounded whenever it was possible.
The Topaz was back in position, leading the column; but there were only six ships in the column itself. Ramage wondered what had become of the second ship that came up the inside of the column. As far as he could remember, he had not noticed it firing a single shot … But all that mattered was that Maxine’s ship was safe.
CHAPTER EIGHT
AS THE grey dawn pushed the darkness westward away from the convoy, Ramage looked round the horizon anxiously until he sighted both the Greyhound and the Peacock over on the lee side of the convoy. It was still not light enough to distinguish detail, but since the Peacock had sail set, the Greyhounds must have had a busy night.